I mentioned before that I was thinking of changing the hosting of my online shop. Well, I've decided to give Folksy a go - mainly because it is UK based and more importantly only allows sales of handmade products.

I've listed few items in my new shop; these are the smaller pieces that I typically sell from home at my Open Studios sessions. I've not listed any of my larger or more detailed pieces for the moment, quite a few are currently out at exhibition anyway, but I'll just see how Folksy works for me. (I'm not at all good at self promotion/publicity so any link sharing would be much appreciated!).

​Thank you as always for reading this. It feels quite lonely in blogland as it's different to a Facebook post in that people tend not to comment. But I've just checked my stats and in the last week 382 people visited this page. Wow! Makes me happy :)

As a member of Kalamkari Stitched Textile Art I'm delighted that our group has been invited back for a second time to exhibit our work in the Donald Watson Gallery at Waterston House, the SOC Headquarters in Aberlady, East Lothian ~ which is about 15 miles east of Edinburgh.​

We will have over 80 pieces of textile and mixed media art on display, and with the exhibition title 'The World Outside' the work is themed around nature including birds, flowers and the landscape.

The exhibition opens on Saturday 13th January at 2pm and runs until Wednesday 14th February. The centre is open every day between 10am and 4pm.

The gallery display is beautiful and lends itself well for a lovely relaxed browse, not just of the artwork but the shop itself has plenty of lovely things to lose yourself in. All Kalamkari work is for sale and although most is framed and ready to hang there will be a few ready to frame pieces as well. Most artists also have blank greeting cards for sale depicting exhibited work.

I hope that whether you're near or far you'll be able to pop along, not only to see the exhibition but to enjoy Aberlady bay nature reserve with its wildlife and views. If the weather is nice there are lots of lovely walks, check out the very beautiful and peaceful Seton Sands bay at Longniddry and maybe a long walk to Gullane.​

Another year has slipped away so it's time to reflect on what I have and haven't done and of course what happens next.

First, a tardy round up, I could say I was too busy stitching to update the blog which is partly true, or I could blame the cat (I usually do!):​

Exhibitions I: I completed three site specific mixed media artworks for the gallery at Verdant Works Jute Mill Museum in Dundee, with textile group Kalamkari. Here is a detail shot of one of the pieces:

Sacks, sacks, and more sacks: Many women were employed to sew sacks at home and often the children would have to help as well. It was poorly paid, hard work, and a sign of poverty and desperation. Workers would turn up at the factory with a wheeled cart which was then loaded up high with pre-cut jute and tarred twine. They had to provide their own needles, scissors etc and for this laborious task they were paid only 5d per 25 sacks - and that only after a strict inspection of stitching quality.

The concentric circles with the black in the middle represents sewing by the glow of candlelight at night-time, with the red symbolising sore and bleeding fingers. The black cross depicts the dirty and unhealthy job of working in these poor conditions with harsh jute and horrible black tarred twine. The needles were curved, thick and cumbersome.​The square stitch represents both the sacks and the paypackets, literally bloody hard work.

Sackcloth and Sore Fingerssewing jute night and daymaking sacks for meagre paya farthing a pieceto make ends meetthe blood just mixesamongst the stitchesa little life in every sack

​

Exhibitions II: The Glenfarg Art Show in the village hall had a wonderful display in April as always and made for a great weekend of meeting people and talking arts and crafts. I'm constantly amazed that such a small village houses so many talented folk and I'm very pleased to be part of it. Lovely!

Workshops - just a few this past year, less than previously. I've had lots of requests for lots of different things but it's always difficult to get a group of people together who can agree on the same day and time, and who are interested in the same project. I love to share my knowledge, techniques and materials and it's a huge reward to see people happy with what they have achieved. However, workshops and courses are something I need to reconsider for 2018 in terms of whether to offer them at all, and if so how to better organise myself. ​

Tax returns - a chore to complete and a chore to keep records of everything, but it has to be done. It's an exercise that also reminds me that I need to stop buying materials as my expenses are far too high! This year I am challenging myself to only use what I already have stashed away in various cupboards, boxes and under beds.

Commissions - I enjoyed designing and making this piece of hand and machine stitched textile work once I got past the difficulties in working out the scale and balance. I titled it 'The Three Forths' and it depicts the new Queensferry Crossing in front of the two older bridges. At one point I thought I needed an engineer to work out all the measurements for me!

Scott at Grange Meadow Framing made an excellent job of mounting and framing the work and the choice of a black frame was perfect. I don't have a good photo unfortunately due to poor light and shadows, and my lack of photography skills.

The client was very pleased (thankfully!). I later received an unexpected critique of 'The Three Forths' from architect and artist Simon Thorpe which I'm pleased and proud to share here:

" I thought several ideas came through very strongly in Linda’s piece, including: Texture – I enjoyed the contrast between the slightly rough, quite open weave background and the taut, precise thread of the bridge forms

Layering – perspective, colour and form all express the contrast of three very different generations of bridge design, with each successive iteration more ephemeral

Geometry – I liked the contrast between the mathematically precise bridge geometry and the organic forms of the map contour lines

I also like the way an apparently figurative piece is subtly abstracted, which I think makes it stronger and freer than simply copying a photographic aerial view."

Oh My!

Open Studios - this year I again participated in the annual Perthshire event, opening up my home and studio to visitors for 10 days at the beginning of September. For the first time I shared my venue with Scottish artist Issy Valentine who brought along a wonderful display of her many and varied creative artworks. Her work was in the conservatory and mine was in my garden room studio. In between the two we welcomed guests into the kitchen to sit around the Aga drinking teas, coffees, dunking biscuits, and making new friends.

Goals for 2018 - in addition to things I've already mentioned I hope I'll do much better with keeping this blog up to date and also my Facebook page. I'll also be investigating different ways of selling my work online. I've had no success with Etsy and have decided not to list anything for the time being - I think it's so big now that as a small trader you are just lost in it and never come to light! There are many other online shops I need to investigate as well as making more of Facebook. That'll be fun!

If you're still with me, well done, it turned into a tome rather than a blog! To finish I'll just leave you with news of a new exhibition I'm participating in with Kalamkari group, starting in January. Details to follow soon.

Last night was the first of two programmes about what really goes on in the fashion industry and the hidden cost of fashion clothing. Dispatches on Channel 4 'Undercover: Britain's Cheap Clothes' went behind the scenes to report on the shocking reality of poor working conditions, low pay, and hazardous environments.

Shamefully, this is nothing new, it has been investigated and reported many times over the years and scandalously the situation is still continuing. Remember how outraged we all were at the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh resulting in the death of 1100 workers?

How about when in Cambodia workers were shot for protesting about low pay, 100 hours a week for poverty level wages! Fires, chemical poisoning, oppressive management style .... oh yes, it's all still happening out there.

I spent some time researching the rise of fast fashion and the consequences of mass production when studying for my textiles degree. For those that are interested here is a link to a copy of my essay written back in 2015

Oor Wullie is a cartoon character published in Scotland by D C Thomson in The Sunday Post. The Dundee Oor Wullie Bucket Trail was a public art event running from 27 June to 27 August. Over 50 5ft tall sculptures of Oor Wullie sitting on his bucket were individually decorated by artists/designers, and then located all round the city for the public to view.​

Kalamkari Textile Art Group (of which I'm a member) applied to take part and submitted a design called 'A Pocketful O Pieces'. We were very pleased to be accepted and excited to take delivery of a huge plain white molded statue all ready for our unique designs.

As we are textile artists we made up Wullie's dungarees from lots of pockets, buttons and zips from different coloured recycled denim jeans. His shirt was made from sweetie wrappers and crisp bags, and he has a scarf made in both Dundee Football teams colours as we're sure he'd be a fan of both!

His pockets are filled with all the bits and pieces a boy might need - including a catapult, a jammy piece (jam sandwich), a pie, and Wee Jeemy (his pet mouse). We gave him a black eye too as he's always getting into scrapes!

Overall he was a lot of work, quite a big challenge, but all of us who worked on him had a fabulous time!

Last night, 13th September, all the Oor Wullies were up for auction at a very well attended event in Dundee to raise funds for the ARCHIE Foundation who support sick children in Scotland. Watching the auction online with bated breath we saw our boy sell for an amazing £9,000! So very pleased!

The overall auction saw 70 'Wullies' sold with a fantastic grand total of £883k raised. What a grand success!

I'm going to miss seeing the statues but I'm sure many of them will remain in Dundee in new locations through being purchased by local businesses.

A Pocketful O Pieces was bought by The Sands Restaurant at The Glass Pavilion in Broughty Ferry. So we can all pop by and say hello whilst enjoying a lovely lunch or a cake and a cuppa.

I've not been at all good at updating my blog or my Facebook pages this last few months .... well 7 seemingly! I have been busy though ....

In March I participated in the local Glenfarg Art Show which was a two day event showcasing the work of a surprisingly high number of very talented artists in many disciplines given the small size of our community. It was a super weekend with lots to see and buy and the refreshments were all provided by our local expert bakers. There was a very busy table for little ones to paint and draw and then learn how to make folded books from their efforts. Noisy, fun and messy!​

I've run a few happy and successful workshops with all participants feeding back saying they've had a good time, learnt loads and had lots of fun. Just how I like it to be.

​Two of the workshops were the 'Introduction to Book Making', where the mornings were spent painting, printing, stamping and texturing various papers. After lunch and drying time these were made into folded, stitched and glued books, each participant was able to take home 6 to 8 finished books.

The other workshops were on 'Vintage Lace, Linen and Memories'. This is all about making fabric collage pieces with photos and hand stitch detail. I had planned that participants would be working with the materials suggested in the title and I dusted off my Victorian lace and linens suitcase for everyone to dip into, thinking sepia tones and vintage style like this:

Most people loved the theme but of course everyone is different (that's what makes these workshops so inspiring) and I was able to get out my (very) big box of hand dyed fabrics for those that wanted to work in bold and bright colours. The end results were all so very different but every piece of work was totally unique and very beautiful.

Kalamkari are a group of Textile & Mixed Media Artists based in Central Scotland who meet regularly to share skills and techniques and work towards regular exhibitions of artworks. Standards are high and I've always admired the high quality of work they produce. Well I'm delighted to announce that I've been invited to join their group! It's always good to work with other creative people and that is one of the things I miss since leaving college. I'm very much looking forward to meeting up with the group in a few weeks time to discuss the next planned project. I've even had a sneaky preview of what the topic will be and am really pleased to find that it's something I've long held a big interest in!

Kalamkari are currently holding an exhibition of their work at Waterston House in Aberlady, East Lothian.

Obviously I'm not participating in this one but I was invited to the preview event and was really impressed with the sheer variety of pieces on display as well as the creativity and craftsmanship. It's a fabulous venue with lovely outside views and the work just looks so good on the walls and tables. Fabulous exhibition! And it's on until 17th February so I recommend a visit if you are able to get there.​

Aberlady is a coastal village about 15 miles east of Edinburgh. I've always loved this coastline - from Longniddry through Aberlady and on to Gullane. The sand, the calm sea, the wildlife and the beaches, beautiful walks and there's always something to look at or to seek out.

While I was there I discovered a bit of a shell mountain. Nearly all were clam shells and most of them were covered in barnacles. Some of the markings and colourings were quite inspiring so I couldn't resist choosing a few for photographs.

And now to find my sketching implements, I feel a drawing exercise coming on. Mark making, patterns, texture and see where it leads!

And a big welcome to 2016. Last year I achieved many of my long term goals and was pleased to see that my creative work was going into new directions as I focused on some interesting research topics. My (many) sketchbooks are stuffed with drawings, word maps and design ideas some of which I hope to progress further.

​I've developed a real interest in working with recycled materials, vintage textiles and found objects. I enjoy creating something new out of something old, discarded and abandoned. The bric-a-brac of life made into new artworks, the preservation of a previous 'life' and the creation of a new memory.

I've returned to making Artists' Books and this is something I really want to continue to explore more. For me the design and layout, the choice of materials, and the final construction methods are all important and I enjoy making the structure of my books as interesting as the content. ​

Booking a Mind Map

I've realised that I don't have to confine myself to just one type of artwork or style. In the past I worried that I hadn't developed a well defined 'brand' like many artists do, instead I continued to go off into all directions. Well, I think that's OK. I can be many things, as I am in life. Sometimes I may want to work in vibrant colour and other times all in white - white on white, oh yes! ..... after all Rothko was rather successful with his black graphite on black paint canvases!

I may make bold collages, perhaps a tiny book or even a large tome. Fabrics, paper, threads are all there for me, and I know from time to time I'll return to my 'Sepia Moods' alter ego and work with vintage lace, silks and hand stitch. How do I know? Well, because I already have a couple of works in progress .....

No, I did not spill my coffee on them, that vintage lace is complete with the old original tea stains! I like to see signs of previous use and wear and tear. I'll probably add more hand stitch to these pieces and then decide what to do with them, I think they would work well as book covers, any other suggestions?

That's all for now, but I'll be posting another update soon ...... and I will have some news, watch this space! ​As always I'd love to hear any comments